Sweet Potato Patties

The obsession with sweet potatoes continues...I've been trying to cook them in unique ways to avoid getting stuck in a roasted-with-onions-rut. So I shredded a sweet potato last night and added some things and fried them in a bit of coconut oil. My roommate even approved (she isn't Paleo and "hasn't had good experiences with sweet potatoes").

The patties! (with honey mustard chicken in the corner)

I'm working from memory now:

• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and shredded
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup minced red onion (or a whole red onion...either way, throw some onion in there)
• 1 tbsp (?) coconut flour
• big plop of minced garlic
• chopped rosemary (I used dried, but fresh would probably be even better)
• salt & pepper

Mix all ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, add some other veggies if you want (kale would probably be good in here). Heat a spoonful of coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat. The potatoes will absorb a lot of oil, so be generous here. When the oil is hot, use a large spoon to scoop the potato mixture into the skillet and mush it into a patty-shape. Let it cook for a few minutes (maybe 3-4)  and flip when the first side is nice and brown. Cook a few more minutes on the other side. I found that when the heat was too high, the outside of the patty would get semi-burned but the inside hadn't cooked yet, so watch for that and turn the heat down if necessary.

That's it. I made this up, so I'm sure the recipe could use some tweaking (movie quote, anyone?) so let me know if you have any suggestions. I did some honey mustard chicken in the oven (honey + dijon + oil + apple cider vinegar over chicken in the oven for a while...mmmm) which went well with the potatoes.

If there are any leftover patties, throw a fried egg and sausage on there and call it breakfast.

Basic Vinaigrette

Finally, a salad dressing that works! Easy to make, tastes delish.

Basic Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
4 tablespoons good balsamic vinegar
1/3 tsp powdered stevia (or 1 teaspoon honey)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Shake, shake, shake. I use my Pampered Chef salad dressing gizmo that stirs it up and then you can pour it out.

Optional: clove of minced garlic.

Tonight's Cheater Dinner

So I have not been much in the mood to do anything elaborate for dinner lately. It's too hot and I'm too much distracted with other things.... but we need to eat. So tonight this is what we did.

I heated some coconut oil, added a good scoop of Thai green curry paste and let that "get happy" for a while. Added a cup or so of shredded carrots and a bag of broccoli slaw and sauteed it for a while. Then added about half a cup of water and a spoonful of Coconut Cream Concentrate, a few chopped green onions and a small zucchini that I shredded (have to use those things somewhere). Stirred, covered and let it simmer for five minutes.

Oh the yummy meatballs? Those are Chicken Teriyaki Pineapple meatballs from Costco - found them in the freezer and it seemed a good complement to the veggies. It was - yum.

Sweet Potato Kale Chicken Patties with Spaghetti Squash

This dinner was loosely based on a recipe from Multiply Delicious, but I changed some things as I went along. I had ground chicken, leftover sauteed kale, and I wanted sweet potatoes and spaghetti squash..so this is what I ended up with.

 

 

Here is the original recipe:
2 green onion, finely chopped (I used red onion)
1/2 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into tiny little cubes (I shredded it)
2 1/2 cups kale, finely chopped (leaves only) (leftover sauteed leaves and stems, chopped)
1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into chunks (I had ground chicken already)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 garlic clove, minced (does anyone actually measure garlic?)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 egg
2 tablespoons coconut flour

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat with 1 teaspoon coconut oil or avocado oil (or bacon grease) add green onions and cook until tender, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Add sweet potatoes and cook for 4 to 5 more minutes, until barely tender.  Add kale and cook until wilted, about 2 to 3 minutes.  Set aside.

Add chicken to a food processor and process on pulse until ground.  Transfer meat to a large mixing bowl.  Add salt, garlic, paprika, Dijon mustard, rosemary, egg, coconut flour, and sweet potato mix.  Mix together with hands until well combined.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or even better overnight.

Divide your chicken mixture into 6 to 7 even patties.

Coat a large non-stick pan with coconut oil or even better bacon grease to just coat the bottom (not a lot).  Add patties and cook until golden crust forms, about 5 to 6 minutes, then flip to the other side and cook until golden and cooked through.

I cooked my sweet potatoes and onions for a few minutes then mixed in my leftover cooked kale (maybe a cup...maybe more..) and put that aside to cool. Then I threw my ground chicken in a bowl with a big plop of minced garlic, some paprika, mustard, salt, pepper, rosemary, 1 egg, and a couple teaspoons of coconut flour. Then I mixed in my potatoes and kale and scooped big spoonfuls into a skillet (with coconut oil) and formed them into patties with the spoon. They took a few minutes to cook on each side.

Doesn't that look yummy?

While all of that was happening, I did half a spaghetti squash in the microwave (cut in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds, put one half face down in a dish with 1/4 cup water, microwave for around 8 minutes or until the skin gets soft). Then I tossed the shredded squash with olive oil, salt, and pepper and set that aside.

THEN, I mixed an avocado with some olive oil, lemon juice, and mustard (and salt and pepper) and mushed that up.

Plate + chicken patty + squash + guac.

Chicken Basil Meatloaf

Chicken Basil Meatloaf

5.0 from 9 reviews

Print

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 2lbs US Wellness Meats Ground Chicken
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 1 cup almond flour/meal
• 1 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients for meatloaf in a bowl.
3. Place ingredients into two loaf pans.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until there is no pink remaining in the loaf.
5. Eat!
6. OMG, that was easy.

Fudge!

Double Layer Fudge

5.0 from 25 reviews

Print

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil
• 1 cup almond butter
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 4-5 heaping tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• a handful of Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips or your choice of dark chocolate chips
• extra sprinkle of unsweetened shredded coconut

Instructions

1. Add your coconut oil to a food processor. It doesn’t have to be melted so don’t you worry your little heart about melting it down!
2. Then add your almond butter, unsweetened shredded coconut, vanilla extract, and honey and just a small pinch of salt.
3. Mix all ingredients until fully combined.
4. Pour half the ingredients into a bread pan and use a spoon to spread out evenly. It doesn’t matter what size bread pan you use. The smaller it is, the taller your fudge will be and vise versa.
5. Place in freezer to harden.
6. Then place food processor bowl back on the motor and add your cocoa powder. Add 1-2 tablespoons at a time, mixing as you go to make sure you don’t use too much.
7. Once cocoa powder is incorporated in, add a pinch of salt, mix thoroughly, then pour your chocolate fudge on top of your now hardened light fudge.
8. Sprinkle with chocolate chips, shredded coconut, and a bit of salt and place is freezer for 10-15 minutes.
9. Cut into chunks.
10. Eat the chunks.
11. Store the leftover chunks in the fridge.

Notes

This serves either one person or a lot of people. You be the judge.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cakies

So, these are my new favorite cookies..banana, chocolate, almond butter. Bingo. Plus the batter doesn't have eggs in it, which means I can eat it raw. The downside is that the recipe only makes 12 cookies.

I used normal dark chocolate chips (non-paleo=dairy and possibly soy, but we can ignore that for the sake of the cookies), skipped the apple butter (whatever that is) and added unsweetened cocoa powder because it just didn't seem like there was enough chocolate. Voila, I still am unable to follow a recipe exactly.



http://www.multiplydelicious.com/thefood/2011/09/paleo-banana-chocolate-chip-cakies/


1 cup mashed ripe bananas, about 1 large banana

2 tablespoons creamy almond butter

1 tablespoons apple butter (optional)*

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of Salt

1 ¼ cup almond flour

¼ cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free – delicious)


Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

With a hand mixer, blend together the banana, almond butter, apple butter, vanilla extract, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.  Add in almond flour and chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Using a 1 ½” ice cream scoop, scoop dough into even scoops and place on prepared baking sheet.  Bake for 11-14 minutes or until cookies are slightly golden on top.  Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before removing from pan.  Again, these are soft so if you remove too soon you’ll have a soft cookie crumb mess.

Pesto

I made homemade pesto for a recipe of zucchini wrapped sausage then forgot to buy sausage. So I just put the pesto on the zucchini. Whoops. But yum.


In my fancy new food processor:

1 cup basil
Juice of a Mima dee lemon
Salt/peppa
1/4 cup sliced almonds (called for walnuts but at $7.50/bag that's just nuts. Get it?)
2 garlic cloves



DONE-ZO.


The recipe said to cook sausage( like the chicken apple TJs sausage)and spread the pesto on grilled sliced zuchinni then wrap sliced zucchini around the sausage chunks. But you need sausage for that so someone try it...

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Curry twice baked sweet potatoes


I made these and ballparked the ingredients. But yummy and easy!

Paleo Sweet Potato Enchiladas

I love enchiladas and I love sweet potatoes, so this seemed like a natural recipe to try.

Here is the recipe from http://paleomg.com/sweet-potato-enchiladas/

Sweet Potato Enchiladas

 

Prep time: 25 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

For the enchiladas

• 3 sweet potatoes, sliced thin lengthwise with a mandoline
• 1lb grass fed ground beef (I used turkey)
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 (4oz) can diced green chiles
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 chili powder
• 1/4 sea salt
• 1/4 black pepper
• 3-4 tablespoons coconut oil

For the sauce

• 1 (14oz) can tomato sauce
• 1/4 yellow onion, minced
• 1/3 cup vegetable broth
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• salt and black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Now to make our “tortillas” from our sweet potatoes. Use a mandoline to thinly slice your sweet potatoes lengthwise. (You can use a knife but I found I couldn’t get the thinness I wanted or consistency with each slice with using a knife)
3. Heat up a large skillet or griddle and place 2 tablespoons of coconut oil in it. When skillet is very hot and coconut oil has melted, add your sweet potatoes. Cook your sliced sweet potatoes for 3-5 minutes per side or until sweet potatoes are soft. You DO NOT want them crispy. (You may have to do this a couple of batches so keep coconut oil on hand.) Do as many batches as you need to and place sweet potato slices on a paper towel to remove excess oil and cool while you cook your meat.
4. Once your sweet potatoes are cooling, use the same skillet to cook your meat. Add in a bit of oil then add your minced garlic cloves along with your onion.
5. When the onion becomes translucent, add in your ground beef along with your green chiles and spices. Let that cook down until cook completely through, using a wooden spoon to break up the ground beef and incorporate all the flavors.
6. While the meat cooks, place a saucepan over medium heat for your sauce. Add your tablespoon of oil along with your minced onion.
7. When the onion becomes translucent, add your tomato sauce and vegetable broth, as well as all your seasonings. Let that cook down until it thickens just a bit.
8. Now once everything is done cooking, it’s time to use your fingers!
9. Pull out an 8×8 or 9×9 glass baking dish, add a spoonful of enchilada sauce on the bottom and start building your enchiladas.
10. Each enchilada should take 3 slices of a sweet potato. Place a slice down in the dish, then another half way on top, then another half on top of the second slice. It should be a feathering or fan effect. Now place a spoonful or two of your meat mixture in the center of your sweet potatoes, then wrap your sweet potatoes over the meat, tucking the ends underneath the other ends of the sweet potatoes (like a tortilla).-see first picture for an example
11. Repeat until all your sweet potatoes are gone. If you are have leftover meat, place that around your enchiladas.
12. Pour your enchilada sauce on top.
13. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.
14. Cool then eat your heart out!

Spaghetti squash done right

This was a winner! The spaghetti squash was a good base for the sauce, and just a shaving of a very good pecorino cheese finished it perfectly. I sautéed some zucchini with two gypsy peppers for a side.

I can't think of a clever name, so it will be

Spaghetti Squash with Sausage and Eggplant

2 lbs Italian sausage (I used chicken sausage from Sprouts)

1 small eggplant, cubed small

Olive oil

Small jar good marinara sauce

1/2 spaghetti squash

Sauté sausage and eggplant in enough oil so it doesn't stick. When lightly browned, add sauce and simmer u til eggplant is soft. Meanwhile, place half spaghetti squash cut side down in dish with half-cup water, and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Shred with fork and serve with sausage sauce on top. Top with small amount of cheese if desired. Yum.